Chrysler – Hot Airhttp://hotair.com
The world’s first, full-service conservative Internet broadcast networkSat, 10 Dec 2016 01:01:47 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.6.116302432Video: Bailed-out former US automaker wants other bailed-out automaker to mergehttp://hotair.com/archives/2015/06/10/video-bailed-out-former-us-automaker-wants-other-bailed-out-automaker-to-merge/
http://hotair.com/archives/2015/06/10/video-bailed-out-former-us-automaker-wants-other-bailed-out-automaker-to-merge/#commentsWed, 10 Jun 2015 23:21:12 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=3865869The two poster corporations for crony capitalism over the past decade may soon merge — if one CEO can muster enough pressure from “activist investors” to force the other into a deal. Seven years after the Bush and then Obama administrations bailed out Chrysler and GM, the Italian car manufacturer who bought Chrysler wants to merge with GM. Fiat’s Sergio Marchionne hasn’t convinced his competitor to come along quietly, so now Marchionne wants to enlist some allies convince Mary Barra to play ball:

His high-profile calls for industry consolidation have led some analysts to characterize Mr. Marchionne’s pitch as a desperate one, reflecting Fiat Chrysler’s weak operating margins. Although the company is now profitable, a potential industry downturn and the future costs of meeting emissions regulations and investing in new technology leave sizable risks. Fiat Chrysler declined to comment.

Mr. Marchionne has been emboldened by the recent success of activists at GM, the people said, and views them as a means to force consolidation on the fragmented auto industry. The 62-year-old executive has argued for months that excess production, especially in Europe, and duplicate engineering and other costs need to be addressed to boost profitability. He took his rationale to several auto makers around the world with the support of the company’s chairman.

GM resisted Fiat Chrysler’s more recent entreaties, including an appeal earlier this year to Chief Executive Mary Barra for a merger of the two companies. GM has broader scale and has transitioned many of its products to global vehicle architectures, an important move that reduces duplication and boosts production efficiency.

Marchionne wants consolidation in order to reduce competition, which would then allow automakers to invest more into business capital. The reduction in competition would end up leaving consumers with less choice and higher prices — exactly what Marchionne says the industry needs. It would provide, however, an ironic twist to a controversial political intervention in the American auto industry. Had the US government stayed out of the way, either or both companies would have gone out of business, but new investors would have had an opening to pick up the assets and rebuild American automaking in a more profitable model. Instead of having a Big Three, there might have been four, five, six, or perhaps even more lines, with better competition and innovation.

The truth is, as Yahoo’s Rick Newman reports, that Fiat Chrysler may not be all that far away from its own demise. Even in relatively flush economic conditions, the company can barely keep up with the competition:

Marchionne’s concern about his company’s vulnerability is justified. Fiat’s 2009 purchase of Chrysler gave the struggling Italian automaker a streamlined U.S. division that now provides the bulk of the company’s revenue and profit. Yet Fiat Chrysler is still only the seventh-largest global automaker, with a chronically weak home market in Europe, scant investments in new technologies such as electrification, and major shortcomings in its product lineup. Its profit margin is just 0.8%, less than one-third that of GM and one-tenth Toyota’s, according to S&P Capital IQ. And that’s with a booming U.S. market with near-record sales and transaction prices as high as they’ve ever been. …

The crafty Marchionne may be floating the idea of a GM merger as a way to court interest from other automakers.

“They need to find someone who doesn’t have trucks and SUVs nailed down the way GM and Ford do,” says Karl Brauer of car-research site KBB.com. On paper, Fiat Chrysler’s lineup might fit best with Volkswagen, Hyundai or Honda, he says. None offers large trucks and SUVs comparable to what the domestics offer, and instead of an outright merger, Fiat Chrysler might be able to work out a more modest strategic alliance such as Nissan and Renault have had in place since 1999.

On the other hand, Marchionne might have to wait for another crisis to torpedo an automaker and compel it to enter a shotgun wedding. Provided the target isn’t Fiat Chrysler itself.

If the idea is to attract other partners, producing an air of desperation doesn’t sound like the best strategy for success. GM already has its hands full with a likely wire-fraud prosecution hanging over the company based on its attempts to hide its ignition-switch defect. It hardly needs Jeep so badly to take on Marchionne’s problems in an attempt to consolidate R&D effort. And let’s also not forget that Marchionne got Chrysler essentially for free, which former Chrysler CEO Robert Nardelli reminds viewers, and that means a sale of Chrysler to GM would be akin to Fiat receiving a boatload of cash from the GM bailout for nothing at all:

To paraphrase Mark Knopfler: That ain’t working, that’s the way you do it — money for nothing and your Jeeps for free. Only a government operation could produce this kind of result. The “activist investor” twist just wraps up the sordid mess in a perfect, soiled bow.

]]>http://hotair.com/archives/2015/06/10/video-bailed-out-former-us-automaker-wants-other-bailed-out-automaker-to-merge/feed/343865869Mehmentum: Clinton underwhelms in Ohiohttp://hotair.com/archives/2012/11/02/mehmentum-clinton-underwhelms-in-ohio/
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/11/02/mehmentum-clinton-underwhelms-in-ohio/#commentsFri, 02 Nov 2012 18:01:12 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=227646PERRYSBURG, OH— Pulling into the parking lot at Owens Community College in Perrysburg Thursday, I briefly wondered if I was in the right spot. I cruised through a roundabout, in the shadow of a painted silo and a giant windmill— the tableau of rural past and green energy future no doubt a deliberate backdrop for an Obama campaign event featuring former President Bill Clinton.

The rock star of the campaign trail was still on his way as one straggling supporter from nearby Maumee and I squinted at each other’s smartphone maps to locate the rally. We found the school’s half-full gymnasium, blocked off at half-court by a red vinyl curtain descended from the ceiling.

Outside, there was no line, but there was a bit of a ruckus as two young people protested their removal from the rally. Kelli Miller, a 28-year-old student, said she and 25-year-old Nick Osberger were told to leave the event after she wrote “I will not support Obama” on the signage provided at the rally and displayed it. A Gary Johnson supporter, Miller objected to not being able to voice her political opinion at a political rally at the school she attends.

“This is my school,” she said. “It’s my constitutional right to express my beliefs, you know? I just held the sign.”

I asked a student working on a laptop right outside the gym if she was planning to go to the rally. “I’ve got class,” she said with a shrug.

Inside the gym, I moved past the curtain to the waiting crowd doing the usual milling and half-hearted chants you get before the headliner arrives. John Welch, a schoolteacher from Moline, was cautiously optimistic about the president’s chances in the battleground state.

“I hope we’re edging a little ahead, it feels like,” he said, adding his objections to Mitt Romney. “I don’t see how he relates to anyone in this room…someone who worries about the price of gas and milk.”

As Clinton took the stage, the crowd, estimated at 1,900 by the Toledo Blade, perked up. He addressed them with a smile and his patented husky, trail voice, damaged from workin’ so hard for you. He ticked off his recent campaign stops, saying he’d lost his voice for “a good cause” before announcing to the crowd he was “honored to be in Pennsylvania for President Obama.”

“OHIO,” the crowd shouted at Clinton’s Bidenism as he corrected himself and pivoted into his stump speech. A prologue on Hurricane Sandy got a round of cheers for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

Clinton was best when he was affably sarcastic, delivering barbs with an aww-shucks, amirite shrug. His impression of Romney when asked for details on his economics plan, for instance: “I’m a business guy,” Clinton said, with a tug at his lapels, getting laughs from the audience.

He reserved his harshest criticism for Romney’s position on the auto bailout and the Republican challenger’s ads on the subject. The crowd, gathered just minutes from a Chrysler machining plant, was familiar with the ad, many finishing Clinton’s sentence with “China” as Clinton repeated Romney’s charge that Jeep is considering sending production there.

This was the most effective part of the speech, but it look Clinton plenty of time to get there, running through a litany of other issues, including a minutes-long discussion of Medicare Advantage’s structure over the last decade. He indulges his wonky style on the trail just as he did in his State of the Union addresses. This was no mere sprinkling of stats but a slow-moving Sandy of policy numbers and explanations, marked by the occasional odd assertion.

Clinton, free-styling on Obama’s claim to be an all-of-the-above energy guy, said Obama doesn’t advocate “taking away incentives for natural gas and oil,” just keeping incentives for green energy. This despite the president’s frequent talk about taking away “tax breaks” and policies favorable to natural gas and oil.

He cited investments in green energy as important, especially to “Indian reservations that don’t have gambling.” The audience snickered briefly as Clinton himself seemed to sense he didn’t want to go any further down that road.

The speech was mostly low-key and low on expectations. Clinton’s summation of Obama’s plan for green energy investment could stand in as his pitch for the entire second term— “Let’s keep doing this.”

His closing attempted to tie up all of the campaign’s objections to the Romney/Ryan ticket in a racial bow, implying Republican xenophobia and racism toward everyone from African-Americans to Italians. The New York Times recounts:

“Oh, he endorsed him because they are both black,” Mr. Clinton said, using his own paraphrase of Mr. Sununu’s comments. (Mr. Sununu had quickly backtracked last week, saying he did not doubt Mr. Powell’s endorsement was based on anything other than support for Mr. Obama’s policies.)…

And Mr. Clinton wasn’t finished. He mentioned how the Romney campaign had, in Mr. Clinton’s words, stated that “now the Italians are taking your jobs away.”

And the big finish: “Mr. Clinton, who says he has Irish ancestry, closed his remarks here by joking, ‘Pretty soon, they’ll come after the Irish – and I’m toast.'”

Perhaps my expectations were too high, but I expected far more people and more excitement for Bill Clinton. This is the rock star, in northern Ohio, 10 minutes from an auto plant, where Obama’s support for the auto industry bailout is supposed to carry the state into the blue column. I’m not regularly on the trail, but I did attend a Paul Ryan rally in Colorado swing district. Like Clinton, Ryan’s a rock star with appeal on par with the candidate himself, and the event was held in a nearly identical gym. Ryan’s rally outdid this effort by a factor of four. That rally happened right after Ryan was named to the ticket, so enthusiasm was admittedly high, but shouldn’t enthusiasm be high in northern Ohio four days before the election? If not, to borrow a phrase, maybe you’re toast.

]]>http://hotair.com/archives/2012/11/02/mehmentum-clinton-underwhelms-in-ohio/feed/141227646Clinton: That Jeep ad really hurt Obama’s feelings, you knowhttp://hotair.com/archives/2012/10/29/clinton-that-jeep-ad-really-hurt-obamas-feelings-you-know/
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/10/29/clinton-that-jeep-ad-really-hurt-obamas-feelings-you-know/#commentsMon, 29 Oct 2012 23:21:08 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=226829And so the Jeep/China/offshoring drama continues. Team Obama was up in arms over the weekend because, they claimed, a new Mitt Romney ad perpetuates a false attack by pointing out that erstwhile-bailout-recipient Chrysler is considering building new Jeep production facilities in China. The only thing is, while Romney did misspeak while on the stump last week about Chrysler’s production plans, everything in Romney’s ad is completely true and mainly serves to point out that Obama gave taxpayer money to a company that offshores, even though we know how much President Obama just detests offshoring in practice and in principle, don’t you know.

So, Team Obama’s response? Fight facts with more fire!

Yes, because doubling down on your false “let them eat cake” narrative on Romney’s proposed version of the auto bailouts isn’t misleading at all.

But wait, there’s more! At a campaign rally on Obama’s behalf today, President Clinton went into full-on shameless demagogue mode, h/t the Weekly Standard:

I saw the reports of Governor Romney’s latest ad saying that the president had allowed Jeep to move to China. And so, this morning, before he left Florida and went back to Washington, he said, ‘You know, of all the things Governor Romney has said that probably hurts my feelings the most.’ He said, ‘You know, I never had any money when I was a kid, and the first new car I ever owned I was 30 years old it was a Jeep. I would never move Jeep to China.’

Well, far be it from Mitt Romney to argue with any of the president’s lingering Jeep-sentimentality by pointing out his intellectual inconsistencies on offshoring — how very gauche of him.

]]>http://hotair.com/archives/2012/10/29/clinton-that-jeep-ad-really-hurt-obamas-feelings-you-know/feed/191226829Video: Chrysler ad a stealth Obama promotion?; Update: Video restoredhttp://hotair.com/archives/2012/02/06/video-chrysler-ad-a-stealth-obama-promotion/
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/02/06/video-chrysler-ad-a-stealth-obama-promotion/#commentsMon, 06 Feb 2012 20:40:06 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=178449Did Chrysler buy two minutes of the most expensive television time possible to air a stealth promotion for Barack Obama? Clint Eastwood narrates and appears in Chrysler’s spot, in which he declares that we have reached “halftime in America,” which seems to hint at a two-term Presidency for Obama:

“It’s halftime. Both teams are in their locker rooms discussing what they can do to win this game in the second half. It’s halftime in America, too.” Eastwood says. “People are out of work and they’re hurting. And they’re all wondering what they’re gonna do to make a comeback.”

Pointing to improvement in the auto industry as a positive sign, the “Dirty Harry” star goes on, “Detroit’s showing us it can be done. …This country can’t be knocked out with one punch. We get right back up again and when we do, the world is going to hear the roar of our engines.”

Though the commercial didn’t mention any politicians by name, Twitter quickly lit up with speculation: Was Eastwood giving props to President Obama for bailing out the auto industry? And was the ad a veiled endorsement of his re-election?

David Axelrod, a top campaign adviser to Obama, seemed quick to interpret it that way, calling the ad a “powerful spot.”

“I was, frankly, offended by it,” said Karl Rove on Fox News Monday. “I’m a huge fan of Clint Eastwood, I thought it was an extremely well-done ad, but it is a sign of what happens when you have Chicago-style politics, and the president of the United States and his political minions are, in essence, using our tax dollars to buy corporate advertising.”

But the halftime Chrysler commercial starring Clint Eastwood, describing America as being in its own “halftime,” was just overtly politicized. After all, what else could “halftime” have meant, in the year 2012, than halfway through the eight years Barack Obama would be president if re-elected this fall? I’m fairly certain it wasn’t a prediction that the country will break up circa 2248 A.D.

Chrysler of course has a right to political speech. But it would be nice if the company wouldn’t be so brazen about its leanings while still owing the entire country — left, right and center — billions of dollars.

Chrysler denies having a political motive in mind, presumably other than making the argument for the bailout, which the ad does very clearly if not quite explicitly. Their CEO laughably asks that “it doesn’t get utilized in as political fodder in a debate” after spending millions of dollars during the Super Bowl proclaiming the wisdom of the bailout. Maybe if Chrysler had stuck to promoting its latest models rather than complaining about Americans debating over policy and then declaring America in its “halftime,” Sergio Marchionne wouldn’t have to hope that his car company would get excused from political debates in the future. Sounds like the same kind of whining that led to the bailout in the first place.

“I’ve always been very liberal when it comes to people thinking for themselves,” said Eastwood, who supports gay marriage, abortion rights and environmental protection. “But I’m a big hawk on cutting the deficit. I was against the stimulus thing too. We shouldn’t be bailing out the banks and car companies. If a CEO can’t figure out how to make his company profitable, then he shouldn’t be the CEO.”

Well, Clint, I hope the paycheck from the endorsement made your day, and, er … hope it clears, too. Sounds as though Eastwood switched teams at his halftime.

Update (Ed): YouTube pulled the ad after Chrysler claimed its posting violated its copyright. I got the new code from Politico, which seems to have a little more testicular fortitude than YouTube and its parent, Google.

]]>http://hotair.com/archives/2012/02/06/video-chrysler-ad-a-stealth-obama-promotion/feed/360178449The fake Chrysler loan payoffhttp://hotair.com/archives/2011/05/27/the-fake-chrysler-loan-payoff/
http://hotair.com/archives/2011/05/27/the-fake-chrysler-loan-payoff/#commentsFri, 27 May 2011 15:14:00 +0000http://hotair.com/greenroom/?p=30972You probably remember when GM made the big announcement that it had paid off its loans from the bailout? You most likely also remember that subsequent investigation found that GM was simply using borrowed money from a government extended line of credit to “pay back” part of what was loaned under the bailout? In other words it took taxpayer money extended under the LOC and gave it to the government as a payment of “debt”. Overall, though, its debt remained the same.

The Obama administration’s bailout agreement with Fiat gave the Italian car company a “Incremental Call Option” that allows it to buy up to 16% of Chrysler stock at a reduced price. But in order to exercise the option, Fiat had to first pay back at least $3.5 billion of its loan to the Treasury Department. But Fiat was having trouble getting private banks to lend it the money. Enter Obama Energy Secretary Steven Chu who has signaled that he will approve a fuel-efficient vehicle loan to Chrysler for … wait for it … $3.5 billion.

This is simply more smoke and mirrors from the “Smoke and Mirrors” administration, now engaged in pre-election image burnishing. In fact, the payback (someone call Debbie Wasserman Shultz) involves allowing a foreign auto company to take more control of Chrysler and then tossing a loan for 3.5 billion from government on top of the Fiat purchase of Chrysler stock at a reduced price.

They want you to believe this signals a stronger and profitable Chrysler. In fact, it is a pathetic attempt to fool the public.

But it is even worse than that:

So, to recap, the Obama Energy Department is loaning a foreign car company $3.5 billion so that it can pay the Treasury Department $7.6 billion even though American taxpayers spent $13 billion to save an American car company that is currently only worth $5 billion.

Again, don’t forget the $4 billion in loans the Obama administration has “forgiven” that taxpayers will never get back – all in an effort to make this truly horrendous deal for taxpayers seem better than it is so he can claim credit for “saving the US auto industry” during the coming political re-election campaign.

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